As it pulled up to her stop and she edged down the bus past the weekend shoppers she heard only (adopts Alan Bennett voice) "...and, d'you know - they never did find that budgie..."

Nan's probably about 43!

I was in Chalkwell and then Leigh on Sea on Saturday. Highest per capita rate of tattoos in the country. Probably.

Tattoos To Teeth. If the former outnumber the latter, the socioeconomic status of the patient may be gauged fairly accurately.

on the top deck of a bus in Cardiff.

"The sea's a grave to me," says one.

Never forgotten that.

Not enitirely certain they exist but it has been highlighted that one could buy a card in the weeks leading up the Fathers Day which reads
'To my Nan's fella on Fathers Day'

When I was trying to improve my shorthand speed I used to sit in public places and transcribe nearby conversations as best I could. The following took place on the train home from London Fenchurch Street one evening:

DRUNK: (talking into mobile phone) “I’m coming up and I want to see my Grandson immediately.”

FEMALE PASSENGER: “Excuse me, can I have my pen back?”

DRUNK: “I’ll give you your pen you little bitch.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone) “Donna, don’t fall out with me. I don’t care if you fall out with me, you’re my baby. I want to see my Grandson. I don’t care about you.”

DRUNK: (aside) “She’s ignoring me.”

DRUNK: (aside): “Shaney’s got a hangover.”

DRUNK: (aside): “Fucking train.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “Wake him up. Punch him.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “Where’s my baby? Where’s my Grandson?”

DRUNK: (aside): “He wouldn’t wake up. I said ‘Punch him.’”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “Who’s on glue?”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “These trains are shit.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “You cost me four pounds fifty nine.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “Bless him. Oh bless him, bless him, bless him, bless him.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone. glancing out of train window): “I’m in Chalkwell.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “What you singing? Ha, ha, ha! Go for it baby. What you like to sing? You owe me nine pounds and ninety five pence. Do you still love me? All the way? Love me for breakfast. I love you honey. I love you honey.”

DRUNK: (talking into phone): “Oh shit. Oh You Bastard.”

A pub by the Thames in East London, where everybody seems to know each other. 7:15pm, 2nd November, 2003.

(The Landlord is sitting on the wrong side of the bar, chatting up a middle aged German woman.)

Landlord: “This is the oldest pub in London.”

German woman: “The oldest pub on the waterfront.”

Landlord: “No, it’s the oldest pub in London.”

(A man at the bar puts on his jacket, accidentally raising his T-shirt and exposing his massive beer gut.)

Landlord: “Did you have to uncover that?”

Landlord: “It’s like an advert for Pirelli.”

(The man makes to leave.)

Landlord: “Bye bye darling.”

Man: “I haven’t gone yet.”

Landlord: “Don’t come back, piss off.”

Man: “Buy a round and I’ll stay.”

Landlord: “Ta da, see you tomorrow.”

(The man is almost out the door.)

Landlord: “Are you on a promise tonight or something?”

(Man leaves.)

(Man returns.)

Landlord: “Oh fuck it, you’re back again. Make up your mind. You’re worse than a fiddler’s elbow.”

Man 2: “He’s like a girl.”

Landlord: “Yeah, not a very attractive one.”

Man 3: “What’s a fiddler’s elbow?”

Landlord: “Back and forth, back and forth.”

(A middle-aged man and a much younger woman enter the establishment.)

Middle-aged man: “We’ve come to spend money in your bar and you’re just sitting here.”

Landlord: “Good evening Madam, it’s a pleasure”

(He gets up off of the barstool and ceremoniously kisses the girl’s hand)

Landlord: “It’s a pleasure Madam.”

Middle-aged man: “What’s the food like this evening?”

Landlord: “Wonderful.”

Middle-aged man: “That’s your opinion.”

Landlord: “It’s the only opinion that matters in here.”

Man 4: (Playing on the slot machine with his girlfriend.) “That’s not going to win, that won’t pay.”

Man 4: “One special.”

Man 4: “Two nudges then. They’re normal nudges.”

Man 4: “Boost.”

Man 4: “Four quid. We’re staying there? Four quid up?”

(Machine pays out.)

Waiting for a bus by Stratford tube. A young girl was wailing at her mum "But I TOLD you, I stopped breathing like you said but nothing happened"

...overheard, perhaps predictably, in Marks and Spencer

is 50yo and constantly complaining about "kids of today" However he told me of a conversation between two schoolgirls he overheard on a train station and I often throw it back at him when he goes off on a rant about those rotten kids.

Girl 1 "Oh no! I left my lunch money behind. I'm going to have to ring my mum and get her to bring me some"

Girl 2 "Don't bother your mother, I'll lend you some, you can pay me back tomorrow"

As I said to him when he first told me that I for one was NEVER that thoughtful as to say or even think, "Don't bother your mother" and the teenage me would have done nothing but laugh at my friends predicament.

If pressed I would have passed along some cash but pestered them until I got it back.

some years ago walking back from High Force with my sister, when we passed some walkers going in the opposite direction. We only heard one phrase as we passed that will be etched in my memory forever:

"... and when we got back, she'd eaten the placenta."

We continued in silence, not looking at each other for several yards until out of earshot, before bursting into laughter. All I could say was, "I don't think he was talking about his wife!"

Outside an office, Glasgow city centre 10am

Chap in his 40s on mobile phone, politely, "Is Ian not in just now? No ? Oh, could you possibly take a message ? Have you got a pen, dear ? It's Charlie MacDougall, can you tell him I got his message, and" speaking slowly and carefully, but still politely "he can stick that up his arse. OK ? thanks".

Outside the Briar Rose, Birmingham 7pm

slightly drunk and beleaguered chap in his 20s "I didn't really snog her. Not really. Anyway, I ... no .... but ....."

Gents toilet, Forton services 2pm

Pink-shirted chap walks in, chatting away on the phone, and carried on "no, Claire, you'll need to move the 3pm as I won't be back in time for that .... just check Adam's diary ...." *starts peeing* "....has nobody got back to confirm the 26th yet ? ...... "

Ashton Lane, Glasgow, 10pm

Drunk student wobbles over the cobblestones, complaining loudly on mobile "Worst day ever. Emma chucked me. I've lost Tony's physics books. I've been in the pub and I've drunk all my money and I'm starving. And now I've lost my flipping phone!"

some names have been changed to protect loudmouths

And it may even have been yankeeragu of this parish who told me this one, overheard between two ladies walking past...

"I was giving him a blow job when I dropped my fag and set the table on fire"

So much information in just one sentence.

...once walked into a pub in Ireland when they were about 17. It went completely quiet for a minute while all the old geezers eyed them up and down, before resuming their desultory supping.

All except for two gimlet-eyed types, one of whom said to the other "Don't worry, Thomas. They saw nothin' and they hord nothin'."

I don't think Nick and Eddie stayed for another.

two elderly chaps one turns to the other and says
" I've got piles y'know"
"Hmmmm"
" All I can do is soak them in hot water and squeeze them"
Pause
"Oh I push mine back in with a spoon".
I drank up and beat a hasty retreat

I was sitting in a grandstand at Troon, overlooking the green of one of th reachable par 5's. Next to me were a couple of aged scottish chaps who watched, gimlet-eyed, and said absolutely nothing. No applause, no comments. Everyone else would politely applaud the players and the good shots, but still nothing from the pair. Until someone played an astonishing shot from behind a bush, hooking the ball in improbably to finish about a foot from the pin. The galleries went potty. Old chap #1 leans across to his mate. "Wid ye say that wis a shot, Donald?" Donald pondered for a moment. "Aye" he intoned, solemly. They both tapped their walking-sticks on the grandstand and said "Shot!"

Praise is hard-won on the West coast of Scotland.

Here are some:

"Was it you that was walking like a German?"
"If I eat breakfast, by 11 o'clock I'm ravishing."
"It was like a Venice fly trap." (Admittedly, this one was in print on Facebook.)
"It's hard to read minds when they're as fucked as yours."

And my personal favourite of the moment. My female boss walked into the office saying the following, quoted verbatim, to a colleague:
"...too big. I used to have a twelve-inch that slipped in and out easily, but sixteen inches is too much."
(It turned out she was bemoaning the fact her new laptop didn't fit into the old bag.)

Some of the main characters are acting out a scene on a busy London street. In the background, we see two anonymous passers-by approach. One of them is animatedly talking, telling a joke to the other person. We can't hear what he is saying until the final moment (the punch line). "Ta-daa!" he says. The other one laughs.

I think I know the joke - and here it is.

A struggling circus comes to town and the Ring Master hits on an idea to audition local talent to feature in the circus. After auditioning dozens of hopeless local acts, a man comes in, calling himself "IronHead". His "act" is to be, simply, hit over the head with a large sledgehammer.

Desperate for something, anything, the Ring Master agrees to give him a go.

That night, IronHead appears in a spotlight with a sledgehammer. He invites a large skinhead from the audience to hit him over the head with it as hard as he can. The skinhead is unsure - but the man assures him that he has done it many times, and there is nothing to worry about.

There is a drumroll...the slegehammer crashes down on the man's skull, showering the front row with blood and bits of bone. The circus closes.

Two years later, the Ring Master receives a phone call. Someone in a hospital bed has been in a coma for two years and has asked to see him. Puzzled, and a little intrigued, the Ring Master goes to the hospital. In the bed is a man whose head is fully bandaged.

The Ring Master goes up to the bed. The man in the bed says -
"Ta-Daa!"

Old drunk on a bus:
"Jesus was no angel either you know!"

Same drunk a little later, begging for money:
"A tenner isn't a tenner anymore."

One middle-aged man to his friend on a bus in the autumn rain, wistfully:
"Ah, to be in Hamelin right now, drinking beer in the rain and talking about the pied piper!" (His friend looked rather perplexed at this suggestion)

Girl on the bus, answering her mobile phone:
"Hello ?"
"I'm on the bus, just going home from work. Where are you ?"
"Where ?"
But that's where I am right now!"
(the bus is passing a girl waiting at the pedestrian crossing holding a phone to her ear)
"I can see you - I'm on the blue bus passing you right now!
Wait, I'm getting out at this stop now!"
(both get off their phones and run towards each other IRL)

And the day after the election a few years back a woman sat on my bus gossiping about one of the party leaders that she had been campaigning for. Interesting information...you could hear a pin drop among the rest of the passengers, every conversation stopped and you could almost see ears growing and rotating like satellite dishes trying to get a good signal.
I can't tell you what she said about him though - I can't remember anymore...! I only remember being rather shocked at the time.